Contemporary Calgary and Sled Island: a new project at Memorial Park

Contemporary Calgary will collaborate with Sled Island to produce a new site-specific project at Memorial Park with Jade Carpenter | June 20-24, 2018

Contemporary Calgary and Sled Island Music and Art Festival collaborate to produce a billboard project featuring the work of Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter. Jade is an Inuvialuk artist and curator based in Calgary/Banff, born in Yellowknife and raised in Edmonton. She currently holds the Indigenous Curatorial Research Practicum at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and is on the Indigenous Advisory Council of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. She received a diploma in Fine Art from Grant MacEwan University and a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2016.

Sled Island is a five-day music and arts festival that brings together over 250 bands, comedy, film and art projects and 30,000+ attendees across the city in more than 35 venues.

Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter uses art and humour as a coping mechanism to subtly address cultural displacement, and to openly address mental illness; the lighthearted nature of her practice extends gestures of empathy and solidarity. These interests invite a reconsideration of the perceptions of contemporary Indigeneity and counter the stigmatism surrounding mental health.

She is a core member of Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective (2016-present) and a board member of Stride Gallery (2016-present). Recent awards include the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize (2017). Her drawings were recently featured in the Summer 2017 Issue of Inuit Art Quarterly.

Jade Nasogaluak CarpenterSled Dog

A billboard located at the intersection of 4 St and 12 Ave SW. June 11 - July 1

In this poster Nasogaluak Carpenter confronts the viewer with a statement that reads, "I could have made so many dog drawings if I hadn't been preoccupied making art about mourning the loss of my culture".

In Sled Dog, Nasogaluak Carpenter reconciles their diasporic feelings through the use of bad dog drawings and addresses the emotional labour of Indigenous artists that oftentimes feeds into their art practices and beyond.

A special thanks to Pattison Outdoor for their support towards their project.

Contemporary Calgary is located on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot and the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta. The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.